believing
by constellation way
Summary: because when she meets him, she's growing up and she's already starting to lose her belief in the things that once defined her life. because he is a man of science, and to him, seeing is believing. /he thinks the name Cupcake is cute. she thinks that things seem a little better with Tadashi Hamada around./ [drabbles.]
1. in san fransokyo

**hey! yes soo, as you might have guessed, i'm just a little bit obsessed with BH6 right now. and i love tadashi so much and my heart hurts when i think of him dying. **

**so here's just something i crapped out for the fun of it. i know, pretty badly written, but hey. it was fun to write. **

**(and cupcake doesn't get enough love. that too.)**

**hope you enjoy! **

* * *

When he meets her, she's already starting to lose her belief.

Cupcake's moved out from Burgess, away from Jamie and Pippa and Monty and Claude and Caleb, because she's got a place in the San Fransokyo University of Arts and Social Sciences. It's a pretty good university, better than the ones around Burgess, and she's got an uncle who stays there, too, so it's not so bad.

But living in the bright, booming city, it's hard to hang onto your beliefs.

It starts one night when she video calls Jamie. Jamie, to her, has always been her best friend, even though Cupcake knows he's always been closer to Pippa. He's always been the sweet, friendly guy that she's known since childhood, the one who can make her smile and laugh like nobody else does and who always makes everything better.

She tells him what she's learning in her classes.

He tells her that he and Pippa have finally gotten together.

(Something breaks in her heart, and her whole world is crashing around her.)

"It's, like, I've always thought about it for years, you know?" he tells her, excitedly. "I've always liked her. I never knew she liked me too."

Cupcake somehow finds it in herself to laugh and tell him 'congratulations' and 'of course she likes you, you big idiot'.

But it's the beginning of the end, because nothing is the way it was before.

She's in a big city, all alone, with only her uncle and his wife in the same flat. She's in a big city, all alone, because she's never been good at making friends and she still isn't. She's in a big city, all alone, because the boy she's gone to sleep every night thinking about is in love with someone else. She's in a big city, all alone, and with her childhood in tatters and everyone is growing up around her. She's in a big city, all alone, and she needs to grow up.

She doesn't see the Tooth, or any of her fairies, because there's no one around to drop their teeth. She doesn't see Bunny, because Easter isn't that big here and by the time she's arrived Easter has gone. She doesn't see North, because Christmas hasn't come, not just yet. She doesn't see Jack, because winter hasn't come either.

The only one she's sure of is Sandy, because every night her dreams are sweet and beautiful and happy. (Even if she's curled up and staring into darkness every night before she falls asleep because she _will not cry_.) But even then sometimes it feels like a dream, and that everything was a dream.

She is all alone. And she is growing up.

And she is finding it so, so hard to keep believing.

Sometimes, she will take out her old things, and stare at them. Drawings, of Bunny and of Jack and all the other Guardians. A couple of old quarters she doesn't bear to use, because they're from Tooth. An old, faded unicorn toy, from North long ago.

It's still hard to believe. It's so hard to believe, when she's in a huge, noisy city with bright lights and everything around her screaming to _grow up._

* * *

So one day, she goes out and decides to find a place to study because she doesn't want to stay alone in the apartment where she's reminded every day of everything that was and everything that needs to be.

She finds herself at a place called the Lucky Cat Café.

She's walking in through the door when she barrels into someone.

He's lanky and tall and well-built, with a baseball cap and a jacket and bright green shoes, and both their things go flying all over the place as they crash into each other before landing on the ground.

"Oh, no, I'm so sorry!"

Vaguely, Cupcake is aware of a voice apologising, as she scrambles upright again.

"S'okay," she mutters, and she starts to gather her things, her papers, her notes. She doesn't want to talk to people. Not really. She's out so she can be surrounded by people, not so she can talk to them. And she's no good at it. She doesn't like talking. Not so much.

But he doesn't give her much of a choice.

"Let me help you," the voice says, and there are long hands helping her scoop up her stuff, the papers with her scrawled notes and half-thought-through projects and assignments. Cupcake wants to snap at him to leave her stuff alone, but she bites it back because he's being nice, after all, and they collect the last of her things and she scrambles to her feet.

That's when she sees him, properly, for the first time.

(Her first thought is that he's really very attractive, but she pushes it out of her head.)

"I really am sorry," the guy says, again, and he is looking at her so apologetically that Cupcake wants to roll her eyes and say, _Sorry for what? I wasn't looking out either_.

But she says, "Me too. Sorry."

She sees him glance down at her notes, before passing them over to her. "You major in history?" he asks, curious, and she thinks about not giving an answer and pretending she hasn't heard, but then she pushes the thought aside. He's being nice, she tells herself. He's being friendly.

She doesn't like small talk, sure, but it's not getting awkward just yet.

"Yeah," she says. "San Fransokyo University of Arts and Social Sciences."

"Cool," he says. "I'm studying at the Institute of Technology." He beams at her, for a second, but she just looks back blankly at him; and then a goofy smile comes up on his face, and he clears his throat and sticks out a hand and says, "I'm Tadashi."

She looks at him, curiously, almost suspiciously, and then accepts the hand. "Cupcake."

He blinks at her. "What?"

She can't help it. He looks so confused, so bewildered, that she has to laugh. And it feels funny, because she can't remember laughing like this for so long. Not since she moved to San Fransokyo. Not since Jamie told her his big news.

(Her heart clenches, then, but she pushes it aside.)

"It's a nickname," she tells him. "Everyone calls me Cupcake."

"Oh," he says, and he grins again. "It's kind of a cute name."

"Don't call me cute," she says, automatically.

He just grins at her again, with that goofy smile.

(Cupcake can't help thinking that he's really kind of cute.)

"If you don't want me to," he says, and he laughs. "See you around, Cupcake?"

He makes it into a question, and she shrugs. "Maybe."

"I'll take that as a yes," he tells her, and he grins again and he slopes off down the street.

Cupcake stands at the door of the Lucky Cat Café for a minute.

Maybe talking to people isn't so bad.

* * *

It's a few days later when she sees him again.

She's sitting at the Lucky Cat Café, because the food's really good, and she can look through her work in peace there.

(Of course, she's totally not sitting there because she hopes that he'll walk in again. Of course not. Because that would be incredibly stupid. And desperate. And Cupcake is neither of those things.)

"Hey, Cupcake," he says, cheerfully, and he slides into the seat opposite her with a grin and a coffee and a plate full of donuts.

She knows she should say hi. It's the polite thing to say. But instead she stares at the plate and asks, "Are you planning to eat all that?"

Tadashi glances down, sheepishly, and back up at her, and he scratches the back of his head and takes off the baseball cap.

(And she thinks, but she'll never say, he looks a lot better without it.)

"Stress eating," he admits. "I've got this robotics project to work on, and I've probably done at least thirty tests, but it still isn't working right." He shrugs, and takes a bite of donut. "So I just came back because I couldn't stand another hour in there. Aunt Cass let me have them."

"Aunt Cass?"

He nods, through a mouthful of chocolate-sprinkled donut. "She owns the café."

Cupcake blinks at him, and she's not quite sure what to say. "Oh. Okay. Cool."

He laughs, then, again, and Cupcake thinks he must be one of the most ridiculously happy and friendly people she's ever met. "You don't talk much, do you?" he says, and he grins at her. Suddenly he looks just slightly stricken: "I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way, did that come out wrong, I mean it's just that you sound like you didn't really know what to say so you just said that because it wasn't really anything that could be replied to and I kind of just – no, wait, that came out wrong – "

Cupcake can't help it. She laughs.

(What is it about this guy that makes her laugh so easily?)

"You're right," she says. "I don't say much." She shrugs, and then adds, "Not good at talking."

"I think you're _great _at talking," he tells her, swallowing his mouthful of donut. "I mean – well – yeah." He breaks off, and he looks slightly sheepish.

She can't help it. She laughs again.

* * *

Somehow, it becomes a routine.

Every Saturday morning, and sometimes Sundays too, she heads over to the Lucky Cat Café and gets her work out. Tadashi sits with her for an hour or so, before heading out to work on his robotics project at the institute, and she stays there for nearly the whole day, doing her work, her laptop usually up and running in front of her.

Sometimes, she's still there when he comes in. He'll collapse onto the chair opposite her, and rest his head on his hand, and ask her how she can do work for so many hours without a break.

"I do take breaks," she tells him, the first time he asks.

"Cupcake," he says, "five minutes of eating a cookie and sipping coffee isn't considered a _break_."

She just shrugs, then, uncomfortably, because she doesn't really know what to say. Because spending hours alone focussed on one task is something she knows how to do, something she's been doing since young.

"Take a break," he says, in a sort of pleading voice that Cupcake's heard on Jamie before and something catches in her throat; but she forces it away, forces her attention on the dark-haired guy in front of her instead. "Come on. Grab a drink with me or something."

"I _have _a drink," she says, and taps her coffee cup.

He makes a face, and Cupcake has to fight the urge to chuckle. (He's really kind of cute when he does that.) "Okay, how about dessert?" he says. "There's not a bad ice-cream place nearby."

Tadashi smiles at her, with that goofy smile, and somewhere in her brain Cupcake tells herself this is a very bad idea but she goes along with it anyway.

(How does anyone say no to a smile like that?)

* * *

He tells her about his brother Hiro.

One day, in between her notes and the endless coffees and the donuts and the occasional ice cream, they start talking about families. Tadashi tells her his story, and when he starts talking about his brother Hiro, Cupcake can't help but smile.

It's so, so obvious he loves his brother so much.

(She wishes she had someone who loved her like that too.)

She tells him she doesn't have siblings. That she stayed with her mum, and now she's staying with her uncle.

She doesn't really know what to say, after that.

"What about friends?" he asks her instead, twisting his baseball cap in his hands.

So she tells him. She tells him about Jamie and Pippa and Monty and Claude and Caleb and even Sophie, and somehow it feels better, so, _so _much better to talk about them, to remember them, to remember endless days in the snow and hours spent talking and laughing and days drinking milkshakes and eating cookies. And she can remember, but she doesn't say, days spent with Jack Frost, playing around with Sandy, making fun of Bunny whenever Easter rolled around, talking to Tooth every time she came by with her teeth, the glee they all have when they receive presents from North.

For once, Tadashi doesn't say much. He listens.

"They mean a lot to you," he finally says, quietly, once she's ended. "Especially that Jamie guy."

(And it feels like her heart clenches again, just slightly, when she thinks of Jamie and his wide smile.)

"They do," she agrees, but she doesn't tell him _And Jamie most of all._

* * *

One day, his friends come into the café, GoGo and Wasabi and Fred and Honey Lemon, and Tadashi introduces her to them.

She smiles, stiffly, because she's no good with so many people and she doesn't know what to say or what to do. But Tadashi makes her join in, he takes away her notes and he asks Aunt Cass to hide them, and he says he'll pass them to her after she takes a break with them.

"You're _always _telling me to take a break," she grumbles.

"That's because you always need one," he says. "If you study so hard and so much, where's the fun in that?"

"I don't study for fun," she says.

"Well, you should study because you have the passion for it," he tells her. "If you study so hard you're going to lose your passion for it."

"No, I won't."

Tadashi just grins at her. "Yes, you will."

She's still no good at talking, though, so mostly she sits and she listens and she watches as they talk. When you don't say much, you learn to observe, because you learn to read people and get attuned to them instead of blabbering on and broadcasting your thoughts; and this is a skill that's Cupcake picked up over the years.

She sits, and she observes. And she learns that GoGo and Wasabi will probably end up together because they are so unlike each other that they are perfectly matched, and that Fred really isn't such a lazy, disgusting idiot that he makes himself out to be, and that Honey Lemon is totally head over heels for Tadashi.

(She wonders why that last observation twists her heart just a little.)

* * *

"I'm a man of science," he tells her, one day. "I believe what I see with my own eyes."

"That's nonsense," she answers, immediately.

He looks at her, tilts his head, confused. "Why nonsense?"

"Sometimes, you need to believe things to see it," she tells him.

And she remembers a dark night sky, a white-haired boy floating in the air with a long wooden staff. She can remember snow days and laughter and snowball fights, and endless egg hunts with beautifully painted eggs, and quarters under her pillow, and wonder in the air every Christmas.

"You think so?" he asks her.

(She wonders how can there be any doubt?)

"I know so," she says.

* * *

One day, she realises that he says the word 'unbelievable' a lot.

"Why do you keep saying that?" she asks him.

He shrugs. "Things can be pretty unbelievable. Like how my brother insists on using his big brain for stupid stuff instead of for good."

"It feels strange," she admits.

"Why?" he wants to know.

"Because you need to believe in something for it to happen, first," she says.

"You sure?" he asks.

She nods. "I'm sure."

"You have a thing about believing," he tells her.

She smiles. "A lesson from childhood."

"Yeah?"

Cupcake nods. "Yeah. Believing's just the first step to a lot of things. Then there's keeping that belief alive. Because belief and faith and trust in something is bigger than anything else. It's – " she struggles with her words, for a moment, and then she says, "It's _important_."

They walk in silence, for a while, just the two of them.

(Cupcake wonders if she's said too much.)

"You want to know the first word that comes to my mind, whenever I think of you?" Tadashi says, finally.

"What?" she wants to know.

Tadashi turns to smile at her, and Cupcake thinks that there is something that feels a lot like butterflies flapping around in her stomach but _no this is not happening and she is not feeling this way_.

"Unbelievable."

(She won't say it, but she thinks he's pretty unbelievable too.)

* * *

**soo...any comments? **

**i mean, i might expand this. if people like it. because it's kind of like my incredibles/BH6 crossover, it's on my delete-without-warning list because yeahhhh. no idea where i'm going with this. haha. **


	2. purple kisses

**i don't know what i'm writing! i just scribbled this for fun!**

**hope you enjoy i guess. haha**

* * *

She's not like anyone he's ever met before.

When he meets her for the first time, she's just a mess of long limbs and a deep voice and messy, shaggy dark hair. She's not petite or slender or slim, she's broad and she's awkward and her face is sullen and closed.

But she has a nice laugh.

Talking to her isn't like talking to anyone else. She doesn't say much, like GoGo, but GoGo's words are sharp and stinging and so very blunt and honest. Cupcake is just – _awkward_. She doesn't know what to say, but she says what she thinks.

And she has this notion of _believing_.

Tadashi's a man of science. Things need to make sense, things need to exist, before he'll believe in them. It's the way the world works. It's how he lives, it's how Hiro lives.

Cupcake's not like that at all.

She tells him that maybe some things need to believed in before it can be real. He says, fine. People have had to believe in their experiments before they became successful.

She shakes her head, and tells him that's not what she means at all.

"Then what?" he wants to know, and he sees her shrug.

"There's more to this world, than science and technology and logic," she tells him. "I mean, they're great, you know, it means a lot of progress. But there's – " she frowns " – there's _more_. And, I mean, you can't _see _hope, or dreams, or that kind of thing. It's all abstract. But you know they're there, you just have to – have to _believe _in them. To believe in magic in the air, you know, that there's more than what you see out there – "

She stops, falls silent.

"Sorry," she mumbles, and she hides her face behind her dark head of hair and Tadashi thinks, just for a moment, that her voice is trembling.

"No, no," he says. "What you say – I mean, I'm not sure if I'm getting it right. But I think I know what you mean." Tadashi smiles at her, and he says, slowly, "Believing's something bigger. It's important. That's what you said the last time, right?"

She looks up, and she smiles, faintly, at him.

(There's a sudden rapid increase in his heart rate that he doesn't think have anything to do with the overly-sweet donut he's just bitten into.)

"Yeah," she says. "It is."

* * *

One day, he asks her why she doesn't like to smile.

Cupcake stares at him for a long moment, and he fidgets and takes off his baseball cap and twirls it in his hands, and he figures that was probably a stupid thing to ask.

"It's tiring," she says, finally. "And there's no point smiling if you don't have a reason for it."

"There's always a reason to smile," he argues, and he sees the smallest of smiles flicker on her face: "See? That wasn't so hard!"

"You're an idiot, Hamada," she says.

He just beams at her, and he sees that smile flicker across her face again.

(He thinks she should smile more.)

"But you love having me around," he tells her, and she rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but she doesn't argue. "You just totally admitted it."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"I didn't!"

"You totally did," Tadashi says, and he's grinning at her, and he wonders why spending so much time with Cupcake makes him feel this way – like he's a kid again, seeing the world with new eyes, and there's Cupcake standing across him in her skirt and stripy leggings and her pink-purple bag with an amused look on her face. "You totally love having me around."

"Don't flatter yourself too much," she says.

"I'm being completely honest," he says to her, and when she turns to look at him again there's that half-smile on her face.

(He's not sure if his brain is working right.)

* * *

Tadashi finds her talking to Hiro.

"So you're Cupcake?" he's asking her, his head of messy dark hair clearly visible from where Tadashi is coming down the stairs.

"Yeah," she says. "You're Hiro."

He nods, and Tadashi creeps down, quietly: _Don't say something stupid Hiro please don't – _

"Tadashi doesn't shut up about – "

_Shit_.

"Cupcake!" Tadashi is by the table in an instant, stomping down hard on Hiro's foot, and his younger brother mutters something obscene under his breath as Cupcake glances up. "And, Hiro. Hi."

Cupcake just nods, like how she always does, because she's a girl of a few words, and Tadashi knows this is just one of her more polite ways of saying hello.

_Please don't ask Hiro to finish his sentence. Please don't ask Hiro to finish his sentence. _

"Thanks, dude," Hiro grumbles under his breath.

When Hiro finally leaves, Cupcake glances back after him, a kind of sad, forlorn look on her face. "Your brother's pretty cute," she says, with a wistful note in her voice. Then she grins. "Nice hair, too."

Tadashi just laughs.

(He's glad she likes Hiro. And he's glad when he goes up afterwards and Hiro tells him that he likes Cupcake too.)

* * *

He makes her try some kind of purple drink that Aunt Cass has been experimenting with. He's not sure what it is, exactly, but it's fizzy and sweet and great, so he stares at her over the rim of the glass until she sighs and gulps it down.

Tadashi grins in triumph and swallows more of his own down.

When she finally puts the glass down, he has to laugh. "Your lips are purple!"

Cupcake looks over at him, sticks out her tongue, and he can't help but think that she's so silent and stiff and mature but she's so much like a little kid too, bright and cheesy and funny – she's a contradiction, a mix of things he thought would never work together. "Yours are, too."

He just laughs again, and she picks up a serviette and starts dabbing at her lips.

"Is it gone?" she asks him, after a moment, and he can't help but smile because her lips are only slightly less purple than they were before.

"I'll help you," he offers, and before she can protest he's reached over and swiped the serviette.

She looks at him with her dark eyes wide, her lips still in that tantalising half-smile that she always seems to have nowadays.

Tadashi looks back at her – and then something just _clicks _and he scrunches up the serviette and tosses it back onto the table, and he leans over and kisses her instead.

He can feel Cupcake freeze up in shock, first; and then, for one brief moment, she's kissing him back, and she tastes of something sparkly in a good way and fizzy and sweet, and he thinks that that's not bad at all.

And then she jerks back.

And when Tadashi looks at her, her eyes are wide and she's breathing heavily, and her face is a mixture of emotions he can't understand.

"I have to – I have to go," she says, and she's not looking at him, she just throws her things into her bag: "I need to go – "

"Cupcake – "

She doesn't even turn around as she races out of the door, and even though he's at the door a minute later she's gone, disappeared into the crowds of people, and _shit what did he just do_?

"Smooth move, Hamada," he grumbles to himself, and he slams his head against the wall.

* * *

She doesn't show up the next weekend, or the weekend after that. Tadashi asks Aunt Cass if she even comes in at all, anymore, but his aunt just looks at him a bit sadly and shakes her head.

He can't believe himself. What was he _thinking_?

He works on Baymax, he throws himself into his work, but once in a while he will think of a hesitant, unsure smile and an awkward laugh and a girl in clothes that don't seem to suit her and he will glare out the window.

(His brain doesn't seem to work right every time he thinks of her.)

He doesn't know where she stays. She never comes by the café anymore.

So he goes to find her.

He prowls the streets of San Fransokyo on his scooter, and every day after his lessons, some days after he works on Baymax, he goes to her university and waits outside, because he needs to find her, he has to. He has to make things right.

(Because even though he only sees her every weekend and even though he hasn't known her that long, he wants to get to know her better and he can't get her out of his head.)

It's a week and a half before Tadashi finally spots her.

She doesn't see him, at first. She walks, trudging through the streets with her purple-pink bag in her stripy leggings, and he follows her until she comes to a stop outside an apartment building.

And then he calls out.

"Cupcake!"

She stiffens when she hears his voice, and she turns her head slowly, just as he brings his moped to a stop and scrambles off and up to her.

For a moment, he thinks she looks like she's going to run, to bolt into the apartment and away from him.

But she doesn't. She stands her ground, and she looks at him with those wide, dark eyes, and he suddenly swallows and he doesn't know what to say.

"Cupcake – " He comes to a stop in front of her, and then stops.

There is silence between them for a moment.

"Look, I get it," she says, suddenly. "You don't have to say anything. It's just awkward for me, that's all."

He blinks at her. "What?"

Cupcake shrugs, uncomfortably. "I mean. _That_. I get it, it was an honest mistake on your part, I guess – "

"Wait," Tadashi demands, suddenly furious: "Mistake?"

She just shrugs again. "Yeah. Look, I know the drill, okay, guys don't go for girls like me, I don't really know what you were thinking, and I don't really want to know, but I'm not going to – "

"You think that kiss was a _mistake_?" he demands.

She just blinks at him, and he sees her swallow, sees her fiddle with the edge of her skirt. "I mean," she says, "Look, I think you're a nice guy. And everything. And I like you. A _lot_. But you don't like me that way. Not really."

_And I like you. A lot. _

_But you don't like me that way. _

He's not sure which sentence his head is spinning from.

"That's bull," he says. "Why do you think I waited around to see if I could find you around your school for nearly two weeks? Why do you think I followed you back here?"

Cupcake stares at him: "What?"

"I _do _like you," he says. "Heck. I like you a lot, okay?"

She looks at him, and there's something in her face he can't quite understand. "Tadashi – "

"You were the one who told me sometimes things need to be believed in, before they're real," he says to her, and he watches her, watches as she clenches her fist and stares straight at him while biting her lip. "You told me that. Why don't you believe in - in _this - " _he waves his arms around, gesturing between the two of them " - too?"

"D'you mean that?" she asks, and her voice is so quiet. "You really mean that?"

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I do."

This time it's Cupcake who kisses him.

(He thinks there may be something in what she says about believing.)

* * *

For some reason, it snows that night in San Fransokyo, a soft, light snow that drapes everything in white, sparkling frost.

* * *

And when Tadashi sees Cupcake the next day, coming into the café, she's never looked happier.

He doesn't really think.

He stops to kiss her before sliding into the seat opposite her, with coffee and a plate of donuts.

The smile she sends him is the widest he's ever seen.

(Yeah. He thinks there really may be something in what she says about believing.)

* * *

**yeah. so. heh. comments? **

**(thanks for reading!) **


	3. a little bit of this and that

Cupcake is not particularly fond of public displays of affection.

She's not _against _it, exactly, but she's definitely not the biggest fan of it. Tadashi knows why. She tells him that she never had many friends when she was younger, and the ones that she did have were all a year younger than her at the very least, and most of them had always been afraid of her before becoming friends with her. She's not used to people physically expressing their affection for her.

Tadashi's not like that at all.

When they're in the Lucky Cat Café, or out at a restaurant, or having dessert, or just sitting somewhere, Cupcake finds that he invariably ends up next to her with his arm around her shoulders or her waist as they talk. He leans in close to her, always, and when they walk together he hardly lets go of her hand.

Cupcake's stiff, a little awkward. She's not used to this kind of thing.

But she doesn't mind it. Not one bit.

"You cold?" he asks her, one day, as they're walking along the street. They've just left the café and Cupcake's fingers are threaded through his own, and there's a cold, biting wind.

Cupcake shrugs. "I'm okay."

Tadashi can tell she's not, though, not really. She's wearing long sleeves, but the material's kind of thin, and she's huddled into herself, tugging at her sleeve with her one free hand.

He lets go of her hand for a moment, shrugs off his jacket.

Cupcake raises her eyes: "Tadashi – "

"I'm not taking it back until I have to get home," he says to her, draping it over her shoulders.

Her eyes search his face, for a moment, before she smiles and slides her arms into the jacket, and then she reaches over and kisses him on the cheek lightly.

Her hands find his, this time, as they continue on their way down the street.

(Tadashi's pretty sure he's smiling idiotically.)

* * *

Cupcake thinks that they are both a big mess of contradictions.

On one hand, she's always talking about belief, and believing, and at the same time she surrounds herself with the study of the horror of wars and the stupid, horrible, painful mistakes that happen in life.

On the other hand, Tadashi is so very grounded in his science and projects and robotics, and at the same time he is so ridiculously _idealistic _that Cupcake doesn't even know how he does it.

She thinks it works, though. Somehow. Sure, they don't agree to everything. And a lot of the time, Hiro's audience to their disagreements as Cupcake tries to convince him about the evils of human nature and Tadashi tells her that people aren't that bad, or as he tries to explain how it's impossible for something to exist because it's not science and she tells him that he _knows _belief is important.

Hiro usually ends up laughing when they bicker like this. Mostly because it happens in the cafe or in the living room above the cafe, and because whoever wins usually wins because they end up tickling the other person or convince them through other means that the other is right.

Usually, Hiro rolls his eyes and buries his face in his hands when Tadashi is winning the argument, because he _really _doesn't want to see his older brother distract Cupcake by kissing her senseless.

Not that Cupcake _lets _herself get kissed senseless. As far as Hiro can tell, she's still perfectly aware of everything that's happening around her. In fact, a lot of the time, she turns the tables on Tadashi.

Hiro's just _really _not comfortable with seeing his older brother like that. Just - _ew_.

* * *

It's a Saturday when Tadashi asks her if she wants to follow him to SFIT while he works on his project.

"SFIT?" she repeats, almost worriedly.

"There's a table where you can do your work, if you want to," says Tadashi. "I mean, if you don't mind having me work on Baymax in the same room. Because, you know, we only really have weekends, but I really, _really _need to work on Baymax but I want to spend time with you too – "

He breaks off, abruptly.

Something tugs at Cupcake's heart.

"Okay," she says.

His face lights up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Really." She smiles at him, and he hugs her, quickly, tightly, before running back up the stairs to get his things.

It's not long before she's a regular there on Saturdays, and after school, too. Some days, when she has to go over to the library or work on her own, Tadashi will join her and get some of his work done. Most days, though, she heads over to find him, and she stacks up her notes and gets out her laptop and spends hours on her work while he works on Baymax.

She doesn't say much to his friends, not really. She's not the most vocal person, after all. Even when she's with Tadashi.

But it's easy to be around his friends. Sure, Honey Lemon talks a lot and gushes about her projects a lot. Cupcake can tell that Honey Lemon is slightly, just slightly, upset that Tadashi has a girlfriend ad it's not her, but Honey Lemon's the kind of person that's much too nice to be mean. And, strangely, Cupcake finds herself enjoying the blonde's company, even if she can hardly keep up with what Honey Lemon is saying sometimes. Wasabi makes her laugh easily, and especially when he isn't even trying. GoGo doesn't say much either, and a lot of the time she and Cupcake end up sitting together in silence. And Fred, well, he's Fred. Cupcake doesn't have much else to say about him.

It's a routine, one that Cupcake finds herself strangely comfortable with. Even in all her years in Burgess, she's only ever been comfortable with Jamie and Pippa and Claude and Caleb and Monty. But here? Here, everything is different.

She finds an arm sliding around her shoulders, feels a tug pulling her closer to a warm, familiar body.

Yeah. Everything is different.

Cupcake thinks it's a good different.

* * *

They spend a lot of time wandering around San Fransokyo in the evenings, especially around Tadashi's neighbourhood. It's where he grew up, after all, and she's still fairly new to the city, considering she hardly goes out except to school, and to the Lucky Cat Café, and to SFIT.

So he brings her around.

They spend hours walking along the streets, fingers threaded together. One of the things that Cupcake likes best about Tadashi is that even though he talks a _lot_, it's never unnecessary, annoying chatter. He tells her about Hiro, about San Fransokyo, about his friends, about Baymax and SFIT and everything in between. She guesses that some people might find it annoying. But she can see the light in his eyes, and she can hear the passion in his voice, and she thinks it's not annoying at all.

He even gets _her _to talk, as well. It's not something people often get her to do. Only Jamie's really ever gotten her to talk before.

(Sometimes she wonders why she got so upset when she heard about Jamie and Pippa now.)

She even tells him about her love for fairytales and the colour pink and unicorns.

To his credit, he doesn't laugh. He only grins and tweaks her ear and tells her she's adorable.

Her instinctive reaction is to tell him that she is _not _adorable.

This time, he laughs and drags her closer.

* * *

The first time he comes over, it's because she's been locked in her room all day. She doesn't answer his calls because she's left her phone somewhere in her room, and by the time there's the hammering on the door it's seven in the evening.

She's confused, at first, because her uncle doesn't hammer the door like that, and her aunt doesn't usually disturb her.

"Yeah?" she asks. "Come in."

And then Cupcake's jaw just about drops when Tadashi sticks his head in.

"Cupcake." He swallows, grins nervously. "Hi."

"What are you _doing _here?"

"I got worried when you didn't show up at the café and when you didn't answer any of my calls or texts," he admits, sliding into the room. He doesn't shut the door, which makes Cupcake think that her uncle's probably outside with his eyes fixed on her bedroom. Tadashi looks sheepish. "I got worried."

"You got – _worried_?"

Cupcake is slightly in shock. Everyone thinks she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Nobody ever gets _worried_. Not about _her_.

"Yeah. I mean, I don't – I didn't know if something had happened to you. And I wanted – I wanted to be sure you were okay." He swallows again, nervously. She's still glued to her chair in shock, her eyes wide, her body stiff. "I can – I can go, if you want – "

"No." The word comes out before Cupcake can stop it, and right now she's pretty sure her face is flushed pink. _Oh, God_. He's in her bedroom. Granted, it's technically her uncle's spare room, but she's already left her mark on it – her toy unicorn, the drawings and photos, the messes and stacks of papers piled up around the room, the books that lie open or shut, seemingly discarded. God, her room is a _mess_. And he is here, because he got _worried _about her, and made the trip all the way here just to make sure she was okay. "I mean – you can stay. If you want to."

Slowly, a smile forms on Tadashi's face. "I'll stay if you want me to."

Cupcake can't help it. She chuckles and rolls her eyes. "You can stay for dinner, if you want. I think my aunt made spaghetti."

"Spaghetti sounds amazing."

They end up on the couch that night because her uncle flat-out refuses to let her let Tadashi into her room with the door shut. So they flick through TV channels, Cupcake curled up next to him with her head on his shoulder and his arm along the back of the cushions behind her, until they end up watching some action movie that gets her falling asleep within half an hour.

She's only vaguely aware that she's never been this comfortable with _anyone _before. But somehow, Tadashi makes everything okay.

She wakes up the next morning to find herself in her own bed, with a post-it on her desk with words scribbled on it:

_You know, you're pretty adorable when you sleep_.

Cupcake can't get the goofy smile off her face for most of the day.

* * *

Somehow, he ends up at her place most evenings. When he finishes up early with Baymax, he'll drop by for an hour or so, or he'll bring her out. But she prefers the evenings she'll go over to the Lucky Cat Café and spend time with him and Hiro.

She likes Hiro. And she can see just how much Tadashi cares for him.

She thinks it's very sweet. She tells him this, one night, as he brings her back home on his scooter.

"He's my brother," Tadashi says. "He's my whole world."

Cupcake doesn't say anything, but her arms tighten around his waist. She thinks he can get her message.

Words aren't always the best form of communication.

* * *

One day, Jamie video calls her.

"Cupcake!" He says, beaming at her when she answers and she sees his face, dark-haired and bright-eyed and grinning. "How are you?"

She shrugs. "You know. Doing okay."

Jamie's face falls, slightly. "Is something wrong?"

Actually, there's nothing really wrong, except that Cupcake hasn't seen Tadashi at all today. Normally, as it's a Tuesday and he ends late on Tuesdays, that isn't really a big issue. But he hasn't even texted her today, and she feels strangely empty.

It's not something she's very proud of. She doesn't want to be the clingy, possessive girlfriend.

But still. He hasn't even replied her text, asking if he'd like to come over for dinner because her uncle and aunt are going out and she's thinking of ordering pizza.

"Nah. Just tired." Cupcake decides to change the subject. She hasn't told any of her friends back home about Tadashi, mainly because she's afraid of their reactions. She knows Pippa will probably be happy, of course, but she doesn't know what to think about the guys' reactions. "How are you and Pippa?"

Jamie's face brightens almost instantly. "We just celebrated our five month anniversary – "

"Seriously? Five month anniversary?" Don't get her wrong, Cupcake loves spending time with Tadashi. But celebrating the day they got together every month? She thinks it's kind of extreme.

Jamie just laughs. "Aw, c'mon, Cupcake! Anniversaries are important."

"But celebrating it every _month_?"

Jamie just grins at her. "Well, when _you _get a boyfriend, you'll want to have a reason to spend special and fancy evenings together."

Cupcake shrugs uncomfortably. It's not like she's lying to them about not having a boyfriend. She's just not telling the whole truth.

Suddenly the door creaks open, and a familiar voice calls, "Hawaiian pizza, anyone?"

Cupcake nearly falls off the chair in shock as she spins around. Standing in the doorway is Tadashi, in his jacket and his green shoes and his baseball cap, holding a flat box that smells deliciously like pizza.

"'Dashi!"

He grins, flops down onto her bed. "I got your text. Sorry I didn't call you or reply you today." He looks at her sheepishly. "I got kind of carried away with Baymax. Went through some serious glitches today."

"You'll make it through." She nudges him with her leg. "How did you get in here?"

"Oh, I ran into your aunt and uncle just before they left the house. I had to rush like crazy, the wait for the pizza was forever." Tadashi glances over her shoulder, and Cupcake suddenly remembers that she's talking to Jamie. _Oh, shit_. "Hey."

"Uh. Hi." Jamie smiles at him uncertainly, and his eyes flicker to Cupcake, who's now turned back to face the screen. "I can go now – "

"No," Cupcake says, hurriedly. "No, I want you to meet someone."

After all, if she's going to tell someone that she's got a boyfriend, she'd rather it be Jamie or Pippa. And if Tadashi's already here - well, she might as well just make the most of it.

She glances back at Tadashi, who's slid to the edge of the bed, his eyes almost narrowed as he stares at the laptop screen.

"Uh, okay." She can tell that Jamie's very, _very _uncertain.

"Tadashi, this is Jamie. From, you know, back home."

Tadashi smiles, tightly. It's a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Hi."

"Jamie, this is Tadashi. He's – uh – well – " She's pretty sure her face flushes pink as she mutters, "He's my boyfriend."

For a moment, she thinks that Jamie doesn't hear.

And then –

"Your _boyfriend_?"


	4. stories

**note: this one's not linked to any of the previous chapters!**

* * *

_Where Cupcake's parents move the whole family to San Fransokyo when she's seventeen and she gets a job at the Lucky Cat Café._

* * *

He first meets her when she's telling his little twelve-year-old brother a story.

Hiro's told him that he's much too old for baby stories and fairytales. He tells his big brother that Santa Claus doesn't really exist because there's no way he can travel around the world in one night (and he's got the calculations to prove it). He tells his big brother that the Tooth Fairy can't be in a million places at once because lots of kids drop teeth at the same time. He tells his big brother that the Easter Bunny can't possibly paint and hide billions of eggs in a single day (especially because eggs are perishables). And he tells his big brother that the Sandman's just a myth, that golden, glittering sand can't really give you good dreams.

Tadashi's sad that his brother's taken it upon himself to grow up so fast. But Hiro laughs it off and tells him he's not a baby.

(Well, of course he isn't, considering how many grades he's skipped.)

He's coming in late one night – he hasn't realised just how much work he need to do at SFIT – when he sees the girl with pink streaks in her hair and in a pink shirt and dark jeans, seated across Hiro at one of the booths in the Lucky Cat Café, waving her hands animatedly as she tells him a story.

"Who's that?" Tadashi whispers to Aunt Cass as he weaves his way to her, leaning on the counter and smiling at them.

"Oh, that? That's Cupcake," Aunt Cass says, vaguely. "She's our new part-timer."

"And – what's she doing? I thought Hiro had homework – "

"Oh, he finished it," she says, and then she turns and catches the look on Tadashi's face and smiles suddenly: "You're jealous, aren't you?"

"Me?" He blinks at her, and then glances over again. "Jealous? Of what?"

"Of the fact that she can make Hiro smile and laugh so much!" Aunt Cass pinches his cheeks. "Oh, my little college man – you know it's not your fault, right? She's still in high school, she doesn't have that much to cope with, and she keeps Hiro entertained. He likes her a lot, but he still likes you best."

"What?" Tadashi's voice goes up an octave as he glares at his aunt indignantly. _Of course _he's not jealous about the fact that she can make Hiro laugh like how the younger kid hasn't laughed in ages, or the fact that she's here talking to him at 10.30 at night which is usually _his _time with Hiro. "Aunt Cass, I'm not jealous – "

"Tadashi!"

His head whips around at that, and there's a wide grin on his face because yes, that is his little brother who has finally looked away from that girl with pink streaks in her hair, and he is standing on the seat, waving excitedly and beckoning for Tadashi to come over.

"This is my older brother! You know, the one I'm always telling you about at his nerd school." Hiro pulls a face as he turns to the girl, and is promptly whacked over the head by Tadashi. "Tadashi, this is Cupcake. Cupcake, this is Tadashi."

"Nice to finally meet you," the girl says, smiling brilliantly up at him, and there is something in her smile that makes Tadashi smile back without even thinking. He wishes he could say the same thing to her, but how can he when he doesn't even know who she is?

"So – Cupcake, huh? That's an unusual name," he says, shoving Hiro further into the seat and sliding in next to him.

She laughs. "Everyone's called me Cupcake since I was a kid," she explains, and Tadashi thinks that she has a nice laugh. "My real name's terrible."

"Can't be as bad as Hiro," his little brother chimes. "People think it's spelled H-_e-_r-o, and then it rhymes with zero – "

"Hey, c'mon, I think your name's pretty cool," Cupcake says, and she punches him lightly on the arm as he grins at her.

Suddenly Hiro whirls around to face Tadashi: "Tadashi, you seriously need to hear her stories. They're so good! And I found out how the Tooth Fairy can collect all those millions of teeth – she has, like, a billion tiny tooth fairies that fly all over the world for her, and then the Easter Bunny, he actually lives in this Warren and the eggs are all painted there, they actually grow legs and come alive and everything, and the Sandman – "

"Whoa, wait, what?" Tadashi holds up his hands. "I thought you didn't believe in all that stuff!"

Hiro scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, yeah," he admits. "But then Cupcake told me her stories, and – dude, did you know that Santa Claus is really _Russian_?"

Tadashi looks over at Cupcake. She shrugs. "He's got tattoos, too."

"A tattooed Santa Claus," Tadashi repeats.

She nods. Hiro bounces up and down in his seat eagerly.

"Hey, c'mon, knucklehead," Tadashi says to him. "You gotta sleep and get to school tomorrow."

Hiro makes a face. "Aw, c'mon, Tadashi! Cupcake was just telling me about Jack Frost, she says he's the most important Guardian of them all – "

"Guardian?"

"Your brother's right, pipsqueak." Cupcake leans over the table and ruffles Hiro's hair, and there's a strange pang in Tadashi's chest when Hiro doesn't protest, and only grins at her cheekily. "You gotta get to sleep. I'll tell you about Jack Frost tomorrow."

"You'll be here when I get back from school?"

"I'll tell you the story once you finish your homework."

"Promise?"

Tadashi blinks. Hiro's twelve, and he likes to act a lot older than he is – but right now he's sounding like the kid he is, like the kid he should be. Something that Tadashi's almost never been able to do, not for a long time.

Cupcake considers this. "And a donut."

Hiro grins, leaps to his feet and hurls himself up and over Tadashi, who only blinks. "Set! G'night, Cupcake – Tadashi – Aunt Cass!"

He's up the stairs before they can say anything else, racing up and disappearing into the house.

"Unbelievable," Tadashi says. "He's never gone up to bed so eagerly before."

Cupcake just laughs again. "Your brother's really cute. He's an amazing kid."

"He is," Tadashi agrees, and there's a strange, empty feeling in his chest as he glances over at Cupcake and clears his throat: "So, uh – a tattooed Santa Claus?"

"A tattooed _Russian _Santa Claus," she corrects, now getting to her feet and slinging a dark bag over her shoulders.

There's a catch in Tadashi's voice as he says: "You're really close to him, huh? He gave up on all that stuff when he was eight or nine."

She sends him a curious look, and he's aware of wide, brown eyes staring at him. "He spends a lot of his time doing his homework down here in the café," she says. "And, well – I had an interesting childhood." There's a soft smile on her face. "It makes it easier to tell the stories and get people to believe."

"Believe?"

"In Santa Claus, Jack Frost, the Sandman – everyone." She smiles at him again.

Something about that smile unnerves Tadashi, so he clears his throat again and says: "Uh, so, uh – you're heading back now?"

She makes a face. "Yeah. Kinda late, but – it's not that far."

"I could give you a lift."

He doesn't know where the offer comes from, but it's out of mouth, just like that, and he can feel the heat creeping up into his face. To be fair, it's late, and it's really dark, and the streets of San Fransokyo can get really shady at night.

"You sure?" she asks, uncertainly. "You just got back, I don't want to – "

"It's fine," he assures her. "If you can keep Hiro under control and make him smile like that – well, you at the very least shouldn't walk home alone. I've got a bike."

Cupcake looks at him, and she smiles, slowly. "That'd be great."

He finds himself with strong hands with lanky fingers gripping onto his shoulders, heading to the address that Cupcake gives him. She takes his helmet almost warily, and he can't help but laugh when she stuffs it onto her head, but he tells her not to worry and to just hang onto him tightly.

She tells him she's not scared, but she hangs onto his shoulders tightly anyway.

"Thanks," she tells him, when he drops her off in front of a bright house. "Really. You didn't have to."

"Of course I did," he says, automatically. "So – I'll see you tomorrow?"

She blinks at him. "You're gonna be back early?"

"I – what?"

"You know." She shrugs, almost uncomfortably. "I've been working at the Lucky Cat for nearly three weeks now, and this is the first time I've met you. I mean, Miss Hamada talks about you all the time, and Hiro too, but, you know – you're always busy at college and all that."

Something drops in Tadashi's stomach, a hollow, empty feeling. Three weeks? He's been practically missing from the house and the café and what remains of his family for three weeks?

Sure, college is important, and the workload can get overwhelming. But three weeks?

"I didn't realise," he says, almost softly.

Cupcake just smiles at him. "He misses you a lot, you know. I think that's why he spends so much time with me."

Tadashi's head is in a whirl. Has he really been missing from Hiro's life that much?

"Thanks," she says again, and she's heading up into the house before he can even say goodbye.

* * *

The next evening, it's eight o' clock when Tadashi sails into the café, and he sees Cupcake and Hiro sitting at a table, sharing what looks like a plate of Aunt Cass' spicy chicken wings.

He slides into the seat next to Hiro and snags one of the chicken wings.

"Tadashi!"

"Hey, knucklehead." He nods at Hiro, then glances across the table at Cupcake, who is smiling at him with a knowing look in her eyes: "Hey, Cupcake."

"Glad you could join us," Cupcake tells him, and holds out her glass: "Milk?"

"A necessity with Aunt Cass' chicken wings," Tadashi says, and he takes the glass from her, and he can't help but smile.

* * *

He's there when she tells Hiro about Jack Frost, about the winter spirit who was never believed in for three hundred years until the Boogieman tried to rid the world of hopes and dreams and light.

"And Jack? He was the one who truly understood Pitch, because, you see, all Pitch wanted was to be believed in," Cupcake tells Hiro, her voice solemn, her eyes wide. "But you know what the difference was? He didn't choose to be Jack Frost – it was thrust upon him. And you know what? He ended up being a pretty good winter spirit and Guardian of Fun."

Tadashi can't remember the last time Hiro's been so absorbed in a story like this. He knows most people don't believe in things like this once they hit ten or eleven – for Hiro, the genius that the younger Hamada brother is, it was even younger, and Tadashi hasn't believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny since his parents died.

But with Cupcake, it's like it doesn't matter. He can feel himself start to believe in Jack Frost, in the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman and the children's tales he'd given up on long ago, and he thinks the same thing's happening to Hiro, too.

"And Jack – Jack taught an important lesson to all the kids that day, to all the kids who were just starting to grow up," she tells Hiro, but there's something in her voice that makes Tadashi lean in too: "That it's important to keep believing."

"Wow," Hiro breathes.

"Unbelievable," Tadashi finds himself saying, and Cupcake's eyes flicker up to meet his, and the older Hamada swallows slightly as the seventeen-year-old gazes at him: "Unbelievable."

He ends up sitting in a lot of their dinners, listening to the two of them banter and joining in himself. And when he's got the time, he listens to the stories that Cupcake tells Hiro, and sometimes, he and Hiro end up telling Cupcake a lot of their own stories, too.

* * *

One Friday evening, he asks her: "Do you want to go grab a coffee or something?"

Cupcake blinks at him. "Coffee?"

He grins sheepishly, nods. "Yeah. Coffee. Or whatever you want. I mean, you've done so much for Hiro – "

He shrugs.

It's true, Cupcake's done a lot for Hiro. Tadashi's always been the big brother who's taken care of him; Cupcake doesn't have any obligation, but she makes him smile and laugh and to be honest he hasn't really seen Hiro smile or laugh like that for a long time. Hiro's had to grow up too fast. Cupcake lets him be a kid again, even if it's for a short while.

And he knows, and he's eternally grateful for her, that she once beat up a couple of guys from Hiro's school who'd cornered him in the park once. He can still remember the evening he came back to find Cupcake pacing along the café, kicking at the ground and glaring out the windows and muttering to herself about bullies and picking on people and other things he didn't really pick up on.

"Coffee sounds great," she says. "But I can't get back too late – "

"I'll drop you off," Tadashi offers immediately. "That'll be okay, right?"

She smiles at him, that same brilliant smile she gave him the very first night they met. "Yeah. That'd be okay."

* * *

"You come from Burgess?"

"Yeah. It's a town, really. Not a city like this. We all sort of knew everyone."

"It sounds nice."

"Not really. When people grow up thinking of you in a certain way, it's hard to get them to change their minds."

There's a wry smile on Cupcake's face as she gazes down at her hot chocolate.

"You miss your friends?"

"A lot," she admits. "My best friend, Jamie. And Pippa and Claude and Caleb and Monty."

"You've got friends here," Tadashi says, encouragingly. "And San Fransokyo's not that bad."

She grins at him: "Yeah? How would you know about my friends?"

"I know I'm your friend," he tells her, and his face flushes red slightly: "And Aunt Cass, and Hiro, of course."

Cupcake smiles at him over her cup of hot chocolate. "Thanks, Tadashi."

"Of course," he adds, "sometimes I think I need to reconsider my friendship with you."

She sticks out her tongue at him, kicks him under the table. "Don't ruin the moment."

Tadashi thinks, though, that this is a pretty good moment.


End file.
